New Year’s Resolutions & GoalsHey everyone, hope you all had a fantastic New Year’s celebration….its NOW time to be thinking of your fitness & health goals for the year.Goals are important to overcome any barriers that exist in your life. Common barriers include work, time, family and sporting commitments, financial issues, geographic issues. If you want to achieve a result from your training program then goal setting is essential. Goals can either be long term or short term.Most people who are starting out on a new training program will have one long term goal. These are goals that will take more than 3 months to achieve. For example, “I will feel successful if I could run a marathon and finish it in 12 months’ time” or “I would feel strong if I was able to bench press 100kg in 8 months’ time” or “I would have more confidence if I could lose 30kg in 10 months”.It is difficult to stay motivated and focused on a long term goal that may take 12 months to achieve. Therefore, it is important to set a number of short term goals or stepping stones along the way. Short term goals are generally goals that take less than 3 months to achieve and are much easier to stay focused on. For example; “I want to lose 5kgs in the next 10 weeks” or “I want to run the 3km track around my house without stopping in 5 weeks”.Regardless of whether a goal is long or short term, when setting goals they must be SMART. SMART is an acronym for the words ‘Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reason & Time’.SpecificEvery goal must be specific. Losing weight, running faster, getting stronger and toning up are NOT examples of specific goals. A specific goal is “I want to lose 5 kg” or “I want to leg press 200kg” or “I want to run or swim 1 km”. In all of these specific goals there is an end point.MeasureableYou need to be able to measure a goal; therefore, it needs an end point. You can measure kg, cm, calories, km, km/h, etc.AchievableGoals need to be achievable. A healthy weight loss occurs at 0.5 – 1 kg per week, lean muscle tissue growth can occur at about 0.5kg per week etc. You need to ensure that you are not setting yourself for failure.ReasonYou need to have a reason or an emotional connection to achieving the goal in order for the goal to be achieved. Think about how you will feel when you achieve your goal.TimeGoals must have a pre-determined end time. If a goal has no end date, how will you know when you have achieved it?So what are your goals? Feel free to share them. Or if you want to set some goals, message me and I can help. Go for it team! 2018 is your year!